Publishing - Posting a Selfie
Publishing is hard. Trust me, I haven't been able to do it. So, I've been tempted to self-publish through Amazon, but have always held off, because I know I can do a lot better than my first book. However, a lot of people choose to self-publish—whether it's with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) or another service.
In the beginning, the idea was to let everybody publish. It was a great idea, but I don't know if the folks over at Amazon realized to what extent people would take that. When you open the floodgates that wide, you're going to get everybody. As in, everybody, everybody. It was probably what Amazon intended, but with... mixed results.
Everybody published everything. Much was crap. This is why I don't publish my first book. I've had a lot of people ask, "Why don't you just self-publish it?" Here's the quick answer. I want it to be better than some of the things I've read on Amazon. It's an iceberg. Ten percent is good. The rest is... bad. Some is vomit-inducing levels of bad. I've had relatives, friends, coworkers, casual acquaintances, and neighbors all come to me when they find out I'm a writer and ask if I'm on Amazon. Then they ask if I'll read their self-pub book. I do, and I often have to stroke their ego. Not only is it obvious this hasn't been through any beta readers, I'm pretty sure this is a rough draft. Sure, they wrote a book. Writing a book is no small thing. It's a hard thing to do, and anyone who does it should be damn proud of themselves. But take some time and revise. Then hit the publish button.
As far as I can see, a lot of the KDP marketplace original content is still lacking in quality, but more writers are choosing this route now, and getting better results. Agents and publishing houses are just as picky as ever, and there are a lot of good writers out there who would rather get their work out there—rather than wait for the agent process, then wait for the agent to find a publisher. Then wait for the editor at the publishing house to accept and sell it to their bosses and come up with a contract. Then negotiate, go through finnicky edits and suggestions. Then wait for marketing and all that stuff. From what I've heard, it can be a couple years from the time you start querying to the time your book sees store shelves. I can't blame people for wanting to skip that.
Self-pub isn't right for everyone. It's a lot more work. But for others, it's a godsend. It gives them both a route to publication and a way to speed up the process that would otherwise take so much time as to make the entire enterprise feel like chasing the wind. Let's be honest. We all say we do it because we want to tell stories. We do, but we also want to get published and share those stories. We want to see our names on bookstore shelves and in libraries. We want to be able to sign books. Things like KDP make it more accessible. That's not a bad thing.
Thanks for wreading!
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| Artist rendition of initial rush to publish with KDP |
Everybody published everything. Much was crap. This is why I don't publish my first book. I've had a lot of people ask, "Why don't you just self-publish it?" Here's the quick answer. I want it to be better than some of the things I've read on Amazon. It's an iceberg. Ten percent is good. The rest is... bad. Some is vomit-inducing levels of bad. I've had relatives, friends, coworkers, casual acquaintances, and neighbors all come to me when they find out I'm a writer and ask if I'm on Amazon. Then they ask if I'll read their self-pub book. I do, and I often have to stroke their ego. Not only is it obvious this hasn't been through any beta readers, I'm pretty sure this is a rough draft. Sure, they wrote a book. Writing a book is no small thing. It's a hard thing to do, and anyone who does it should be damn proud of themselves. But take some time and revise. Then hit the publish button.
As far as I can see, a lot of the KDP marketplace original content is still lacking in quality, but more writers are choosing this route now, and getting better results. Agents and publishing houses are just as picky as ever, and there are a lot of good writers out there who would rather get their work out there—rather than wait for the agent process, then wait for the agent to find a publisher. Then wait for the editor at the publishing house to accept and sell it to their bosses and come up with a contract. Then negotiate, go through finnicky edits and suggestions. Then wait for marketing and all that stuff. From what I've heard, it can be a couple years from the time you start querying to the time your book sees store shelves. I can't blame people for wanting to skip that.Self-pub isn't right for everyone. It's a lot more work. But for others, it's a godsend. It gives them both a route to publication and a way to speed up the process that would otherwise take so much time as to make the entire enterprise feel like chasing the wind. Let's be honest. We all say we do it because we want to tell stories. We do, but we also want to get published and share those stories. We want to see our names on bookstore shelves and in libraries. We want to be able to sign books. Things like KDP make it more accessible. That's not a bad thing.
Thanks for wreading!
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